


what came before

by poppyseedheart



Series: the when of it all [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15569145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppyseedheart/pseuds/poppyseedheart
Summary: “Okay,” Gavin says. He twists his hands over each other. Michael’s arm is warm where it drapes across his upper back, and he leans into it. “Okay. Just tell me if you’re planning to do anything stupid.”Michael huffs, almost laughing but not quite. “You’d be planning it with me.”“Yeah,” agrees Gavin, mollified, and believes him.





	what came before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [olympvs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/olympvs/gifts).



> Happiest of happy birthdays to you, my dear olympvs, even if this is real late! I'm so grateful for your friendship, and I hope you like this little flashback in the what comes after verse, which now has a name! Exciting stuff.
> 
> Thank you for being such a lovely, kind, enthusiastic friend. Much love to you <3
> 
> Also this isn't beta'd so if there are mistakes just let it happen.

Gavin receives the job offer in person. It’s the first time he’s ever met with the Director after years of slogging away in the entertainment sector, and he’s nervous, fidgeting with his uncomfortably tight tie in the lobby of the office. The aircon being pumped into the room makes the nervous sweat at his brow dry clammy, but he barely even notices it over the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his chest.

“Free?” calls the secretary, an older man with a severe tilt to his mouth. 

Gavin all but leaps up out of his seat, clutching at the pad folio he’d panic-bought last minute. The man turns around and leads Gavin back a narrow hallway to a door at the end of the hall. The plaque on the wood is so shiny Gavin can see his own reflection in it. He averts his eyes quickly, not wanting to see what a mess he must look.

He walks inside, takes a seat, doesn’t open the pad folio. His left leg won’t stop bouncing. The director glances at him sternly, but Gavin can’t help it, so he just has to hope he’ll be forgiven for his excitement. 

“Your work in the entertainment sector,” says the director, hair gray at his temples, eyes sharp, “has been exemplary, but we feel your talents could best be utilized in a more active role.”

There have been whispers that this might happen. Whispers that Gavin would be shifted, and whispers that the Revolution needs more help gathering intelligence before a larger strike. Sure enough, the rumors are confirmed in the moments that follow, Gavin wide-eyed and quiet trying to keep up with what’s happening. They want to pull him from behind the camera. They want him to be a _spy_.

The entire meeting takes only fifteen minutes, though it feels like longer, and then he’s leaving with a giddy skip in his step and the news of a lifetime.

The City is beautiful today. Gavin’s biased, sure, but he can’t help but think there’s just something in the air this afternoon. They’d let him off of work early to take some time to think over the offer—though, if he’s being honest, Gavin doesn’t anticipate taking much time at all—and it feels like it’s been forever since he’s walked through these streets at 3pm.

Sure, it’s still under an authoritarian stranglehold, but it won’t be for long, and now Gavin gets to be part of that in a more direct way than he ever was before.

“Espionage department,” he murmurs to himself, still disbelieving, feeling a small smile nip at the corners of his mouth. He darts through the crowd, careful with his footsteps as he passes the towering skyscrapers in the downtown sector. If he’s quick, he’ll make it home before Michael, and he’ll have an extra moment to savor this alone before they celebrate it together. Michael has never been particularly pro-Revolution, but he’s also not pro-establishment, and surely he’ll be happy for Gavin. Maybe they can cook together or something.

They don’t live together properly, but they’ve been talking about it. Michael stays over at Gavin’s enough anyway, so it’s not like it wouldn’t be feasible. They can put Michael’s outdated television in the living room for now, maybe swapping it out for something more high-tech later on, and they’ll probably end up taking Gavin’s bed to a donation center after replacing it with Michael’s which is much softer and larger. Hell, Gavin has already started moving things around in his closet, careful to make sure there’s enough room just in case Michael decides to move in at the drop of a hat, no warning necessary.

Gavin is still running over the possibilities in his head, feeling almost foolish for it but not quite, when he turns the key and opens the door, which is why his brain is a split second too late in registering the shoes by the door, the keys on the hook, the telltale signs that Gavin’s not the first one home after all.

“Oh,” he says, seeing Michael perched on the couch, scrolling through something or other on his tablet. There’s a line between his brows, a crease of frustration, and Gavin wants to smooth it out with his thumb. “Hi, I didn’t know you were coming back early.”

“Me neither,” says Michael, voice strangely flat. He doesn’t even look up from whatever he’s reading.

Gavin frowns, then shrugs. Usually, when Michael is upset about something he just needs time to cool off. Something probably happened at work. Just last week someone sent Michael into an attic with faulty wiring and didn’t warn him about the fire hazard, and the subsequent evening may have been the angriest he’s ever seen Michael. He was over it by the next morning, though, as these things tend to go.

Gavin sets about settling into being home for the evening. He takes off his shoes, puts his wallet on the counter, hangs his keys by the door. “I have news,” he calls from the kitchen.

He can’t see Michael when he replies, “Cool. What do you want for dinner?”

“Really?” Gavin doesn’t protest further, but it takes some restraint.

“Yup.”

“What, did you get zapped at work or something?” He walks back over to the living room, where Michael is still perched on Gavin’s couch, still not looking up.

“No, I didn’t get fucking zapped. I got news, too.”

By the look on his face, Gavin can guess it wasn’t great. “Yeah?” he prods.

Michael runs a hand over his face, sighing, and he finally puts the tablet down. When he looks up properly at Gavin, Gavin sees that he looks exhausted, corners of his eyes sagging a bit. The elation of the last hour drips from his system and is replaced by worry.

“Yeah,” starts Michael, and he sounds tired, too, like he didn’t want to do this yet, or like he’s gearing up for a fight. “I got offered an infantry position.”

Gavin’s smart retort dies in his throat. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Things feel fuzzy, distant, like Gavin is watching from the other side of the room. “Are you taking it?”

Michael looks at him like he’s grown an extra head. “No, Gavin. I don’t have a fucking death wish. God, you— fuck, whatever. What’s your news?”

Infantry positions are not offered on a voluntary basis. Michael is as good as drafted, and he’ll become cannon fodder to be thrown at the wealthy elite that really run this city—or, more likely, at their well-paid security officers—whenever the Revolution decides it’s ready to go to war. No one here talks about the skirmishes that broke out two years ago, or how quickly they were quashed. Especially no one talks about the swathes of Revolution fighters that seemed to disappear into thin air. If Michael accepts, he could die. If he doesn’t, the Revolution will find other ways of making him disappear.

The air tastes like ash in his mouth, and Gavin finds he doesn’t want to share anymore.

His face must do something truly pitiful, because Michael scoffs, brow knitting into what could be either concern or disdain. “I’ll figure something out, all right, asshole? Don’t do that.”

“I’m not doing anything,” says Gavin, and he sounds unconvincing even to himself. Really, he sounds scared, but he doesn’t want to dwell on that right now.

Michael softens and pats the couch next to him. Gavin goes, sitting beside him and resting his head on Michael’s shoulder. It took a while to get him to warm up to Gavin, but by now they’re old hat at this, and Michael’s arm comes to wrap around Gavin, pulling him close.

“I’ll be fine,” murmurs Michael. “I’m stressed, whatever, it’s not that bad.”

It’s an incredible turn around from his frustration, and Gavin would be a grade-A dickwad not to just let it be and move on. Neither of them needs to be yelling right now, especially not at each other. “Okay,” he says. He twists his hands over each other. Michael’s arm is warm where it drapes across his upper back, and he leans into it. “Okay. Just tell me if you’re planning to do anything stupid.”

Michael huffs, almost laughing but not quite. “You’d be planning it with me.”

“Yeah,” agrees Gavin, mollified, and believes him. 

They don’t talk about it more that night, instead putting together an easy dinner and listening to the radio. Before they go to sleep, Gavin mentions his new position, but frames it like he’s not sure if he’ll take it. It makes the conversation easier to swallow. 

When morning crests, Michael just says, “Have a good day at work,” and he sounds fine, confident, genuinely okay.

And Gavin believes him, and believes him, and days pass, and they don’t talk about it, and Gavin knows with a certainty he rarely possesses that whatever the storm brings, they can weather it together.

But when the sky does dark, Michael goes missing, and all he leaves is a note containing a halfhearted apology and a warning against pursuit.

In the weeks that follow, Gavin worries it over in his head time and time again, wondering if he would have left with Michael had the other man asked him to. Most of him thinks, with the quietest kind of desperation, that of course he would have gone, if only Michael had trusted him enough.

There’s a small part, though, that curls up in his shadows, selfish and certain that nothing would have changed. Gavin likes his life now. He loves spying, and meeting Meg properly now that they’re partners has kept him from burrowing too deep into his own despair. They’re making a difference, he’s sure of it, and with every infantry soldier they lose the sting lessens. It’s worth it. It has to be worth it.

At night, Gavin dreams of Michael sitting on his couch, mouthing to himself as he reads the way he never quite realized he was doing. The slope of his nose, the amber of his eyes. The gentleness in his hands when he was holding something he cared about.

In the morning, Gavin shrugs off his ghosts and gets to work.


End file.
